Dhakhar

by Annabelle Rex

  As we transition into the sprawl of stalls, my nose is assaulted by the delicious scents of hot, greasy food sizzling on grills and fresh baked bread being pulled from what looks a bit like a pizza oven. An alien with four arms stirs three giant vats of something spicy, while taking payment for a bowl with his remaining hand. It’s not been that long since breakfast, but the amount of food here is making me hungry.

  Jaxran wanders over to a store selling what looks like buns, flicking a coin to the owner before picking up three little bags. He hands one to me and one to the Captain. I open it up and smell the steam rising out of it. It’s vaguely like cinnamon and hot dough. I pull off a chunk and taste it, and though it’s not sweet like I’m expecting, it’s full of flavour - little berries at its centre that burst on my tongue.

  “Is there any order to it?” I ask as we approach the centre, spinning round as I try to take it all in.

  “Not really,” Jaxran says with a grin.

  For the first time since I woke up in Xentra hospital, I’m actually enjoying myself without any reservations. I love Denestra and its crazy market place. It’s exactly the sort of place I sometimes imagine myself travelling to, buying some cute local pottery or something as a keepsake. Jason always used to laugh at this.

  Pottery? What the hell do you want pottery for? And you’ve barely left the city, you’re not going to start travelling abroad now, are you?

  When I pushed him about it, he eventually admitted that he was worried by the thought of me travelling places on my own. I told him he could come with me, but he just shook his head.

  My territory’s here, isn’t it, babe?

  I resigned myself to the fact that travelling was just one of those things that we wouldn’t do. But seeing all this makes me question whether I was right to give in so quickly. Because this place is amazing, and sure, I’m not likely to be leaving the planet again, but there are so many places we could explore on Earth. Even if we just went next door to France to get us started. I’m sure Jason would enjoy it, too.

  I resolve to try him again about it. I’ll have to keep all this secret, I’m sure, but Jason is practically my fiancé. They have to let me tell him, right? I have to be able to explain where I’ve been all this time. I can tell him about the markets of Denestra and how wonderful they were.

  I can show him.

  I turn to Jaxran. “Is it okay if I have a look around? I’d like to buy something. Something to remember this place by.”

  Maybe not pottery though. It would be difficult to transport.

  Jaxran looks to Captain Dhakhar, and I suspect I’m about to be told no. Because I’ve asked not ordered. I could change it to an order, but it would taint it. It wouldn’t be fun any more.

  Then Dhakhar reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out some coins. He counts out five and hands them to me.

  “It’s not a lot, ma’am,” he says, “but if you’re any good at haggling, you might be able to pick up a nice souvenir.”

  I grin, delighted that he’s allowing me this.

  I head straight towards an area selling clothing - several different stalls selling clothes similar to the ones I’m now wearing. But unlike my white blouse and brown trousers, these are a riot of vibrant colours. The men and women running the stalls wear their own garments, and though it’s nothing like any sort of Human fashion I’ve ever seen, they look spectacular. They wave at me, try to entice me closer, but I just shake my head and keep walking. I’ve got enough clothes for now. Besides, the small number of coins Dhakhar gave me probably wouldn’t buy me a single hem of those garments.

  The stalls blend from clothes into what could be homewares - bizarre appliances being sold next to what look like ornamental items. Some of them are cute, but they have writing on that I can’t read. I admire them, but keep walking, Dhakhar and Jaxran a short distance behind me. Enough to give me some privacy without being too far to keep me safe.

  I linger at a store selling bracelets that look way too nice to be in my price range. The owner coos at my nails and asks if they just grow that way. I tell her about acrylics while she tries to entice me with a selection of bracelets with gemstones that match the green of my nails. I show her the coins I have and she just shakes her head.

  Suddenly, I’m thinking about last Christmas, and how I got as far as picking up the application form for a temporary post in the local supermarket. Mum’s drinking had got really bad, and money was as tight as I’d ever known it. Christmas was likely to be cancelled if things carried on, and I figured I could do the responsible thing - get myself a job and a wage and help pull the family up out of the gutter.

  Jason found the application and threw it in the bin, laughing at the idea of me working.

  “Charlie, baby, you’d last five minutes in a supermarket,” he said, and when I pulled a face at him, annoyed that he’d been so dismissive, he pulled me in to his arms and whispered in my ear. “You’re my beautiful princess, you don’t belong in a supermarket. You should let me take care of you. That’s my job.”

  And he had taken care of me. Not just me - Nat and my mother, too. We had a great Christmas, and I was so in love with Jason for his kindness and his generosity. But now I’m wondering how much that set him back in his quest to save for our wedding. How many more weeks of being involved in the ‘business’ would he have because he didn’t think I could hack stacking shelves.

  I need to be less pathetic. I need to have more strength of character. I don’t want Jason to feel he has to protect me all the time. I’m on an alien planet. I’ve survived being abducted. Once he knows all this about me, maybe he’ll treat me more as an equal.

  “You look a hundred lightyears away,” a female voice says.

  I look round in the direction of the voice. A stall owner is watching me, her weatherbeaten face making it impossible to determine any idea of her age. Like almost all the aliens I’ve seen so far, her features lean towards sharpness, but her deep blue eyes sparkle with curiosity as she looks at me.

  “I was just thinking about… things,” I say.

  She just smiles at me, then gestures to her wares. “I sell jewellery made from local Katarsha crystals. They have very special properties.”

  Sure. They’ll bring me good luck and protect me from bad vibes or whatever woo woo nonsense is popular in space. But, as I look at what she’s selling, I have to admit, they are pretty. My eyes are drawn immediately to the necklaces - colourful slices of crystal, each of them a slightly different shape. They start dark at the edges, but get lighter towards the middle, each one a range of hues in a single colour. I touch my fingers to the green one, seeing how well it matches my nails.

  “No,” the woman says, picking up one of the red ones. “This is the one you need. Resonates with happiness.”

  “Resonates?” I say, wondering exactly what she’s going to try to sell me.

  “Glows. The crystals all respond to different emotions. You have a sad aura,” she says, and I don’t know whether to be insulted or not. “This will glow when you are happy, help you be happy more often.”

  Well, of course I have a sad aura, I’ve been abducted by aliens. If I was back home, I wouldn’t be sad. I don’t need a fancy necklace to tell me that.

  But, despite it probably being complete rubbish, the necklaces are pretty. I reach in my pocket and pull out everything I’ve got.

  “This is all I have,” I say.

  “Then that is all it costs,” she replies, holding out her hand.

  She’s either just been really generous, or I’ve been conned. I’m leaning to the latter, but it’s the Captain’s money. I don’t really care. The stall owner hands me the necklace and I clip it in to place, tucking the slice of crystal beneath my blouse. It sits against my breastbone, cool for the moment, until my skin warms it through.

  “You’ll see,” the woman says. “When it doesn’t ever glow around him. Then you’ll know.”

  “Sure,” I say, still not buying a word of it.

/>   I don’t realise quite what she actually said until I’m walking away. When it doesn’t ever glow around him. I never mentioned anything about any ‘him’ to her.

  Must be like those clairvoyant con artists - good at reading people and making educated guesses.

  I could keep wandering among the stalls, but now the money’s spent, I figure we should get back to the ship. We are supposed to be on a schedule - we’ve got people to meet at the other end of this trip. I probably shouldn’t keep the Captain waiting any longer than necessary.

  I look round, expecting him to be pretty much right behind me, but he’s not. Jaxran has been caught in conversation with one of the stall owners about three stalls back from where I am. The Captain is just ahead of him, surrounded by a gaggle of small children who are jumping up and down, apparently very excited to see him. One of them asks him something, and Dhakhar slips his hand into one of his pockets, pulling out a small disc. He touches something on the side of it, and a small hologram appears above it, a logo of some sort. Probably the logo of his law enforcement department.

  But… despite my feelings towards police officers, I can’t help but smile as I watch him with the kids. He’s more relaxed around them than he’s ever been with me, smiling as they reach forwards to poke the hologram with their fingers. When he smiles like that - a real smile, not the polite half smile he always gives me - I have to admit, my assessment of ‘handsome’ no longer cuts it. A proper, unreserved smile moves him firmly into the ‘breathtaking’ category.

  Then he looks up and sees me, our eyes meeting across the market. I know the smile on his face is from the kids, not me, but it’s easy to fall into the feeling that he’s smiling like that at me. So I smile back. And it’s like everyone else in the market fades a little bit, the sounds dulling, the frenetic chaos of the place drifting to the very back of my awareness until it’s just us two. For a long second, we’re smiling at each other, and I feel like I’m seeing him as he could be, as he should be, if it weren’t for Commander H’Varak and the role we both have to play for him. My heart beats just a little faster.

  Then Dhakhar frowns and the spell is broken. I have a microsecond to feel disappointed.

  Then a hand claps over my mouth, an arm wraps round my waist and I’m being dragged backwards. I struggle and kick, but my mind starts flashing to the day I was abducted, the memories still hazy, but this - the fight, the struggle - clear enough. Panic sets in and I thrash in the arms of whoever has grabbed me, only vaguely aware of the sound of screams and crashing noises around me.

  I feel the intense heat of the sun on my skin. I’m out from underneath the canopy of the market and still being dragged. Where’s Dhakhar? Where’s Jaxran? What’s happening? My mind cycles through questions, too fast to even consider answers. I’m breathing hard, my throat tight with panic and fear. My limbs feel too weak to fight with, my muscles like cooked spaghetti. With the hand clamped hard over my mouth, I can’t even scream.

  Then I’m being thrown into the back of some sort of van. I land amongst a sprawl of other people - all of them women. We scramble to pick ourselves up, but the space isn’t large enough to fully stand. Someone rises into a crouch, as if they’re intending to spring forwards at our captors, but then the barrel of a gun is being pointed at us, and everyone stills.

  “Thank you ladies,” the man holding it says, then steps back, slamming the doors shut, plunging us into absolute darkness.

  Chapter 11

  Dhakhar

  I don’t have a gun. Why didn’t I bring a gun?

  I duck as a burst of laser fire hits a stall near my head, the wood exploding, raining sharp fragments down on me. I don’t know where Jaxran went, but I can’t think about that now. I have to get the princess back.

  She wasn’t two stalls ahead of me when those kids piled round asking to see my badge. Less than two stalls and less than two minutes of distraction. On a planet that’s supposed to be safe.

  And I’m a vecking idiot because I know well from my army days that two minutes distraction is all it takes for someone to strike.

  I push forwards, barging people aside as I try to spot the princess. She was grabbed right in front of me, but chaos quickly erupted, stalls knocked over, good spilling everywhere and people running, screaming, panicking all around me. I lost sight of her almost instantly.

  At last, I catch a glimpse of her, fighting hard against the man who grabbed her, making it as difficult as possible for him to manoeuvre her.

  Good girl, I think, just keep that up a little longer.

  A path clears ahead of me and I put on a burst of speed. If I can make the most of it, I’ll catch them. But another hostile steps into the path, gun aimed right at me.

  I dive to the side as two bolts of laser fire sizzle past me. My heart pounds, pumping adrenaline through my body. It sharpens my senses and hardens my scales, my Dravosic instincts overriding my gentler Garvenian nature. I want to hunt, I want to rip and tear with claws I don’t have, I…

  I drag myself back under control. Force my military training to override those animalistic desires. Assess the situation. My dive for safety has put me behind a stall, and I’m not sure where the hostile is now in relation to me. I push myself to my feet, but don’t stand, halted by the touch of a laser rifle barrel against my chest. The hostile stands over me, grinning.

  “Goodbye, officer,” he says, then pulls the trigger.

  It’s the one advantage of being hybrid. If he knew my chest was covered in diamond hard Dravosic scales, he would have shot me in the head. As it is, the laser fire bounces off me, sinking harmlessly into the sandy floor. I use the moment of confusion to disarm the hostile, twisting his rifle out of his hands. Then Ness appears out of nowhere, leaping at the now unarmed hostile and knocking him to the floor, teeth snapping.

  I move forwards, raising the gun, scanning the crowds in the direction that I last saw the princess. I spot her just in time to see her bundled in the back of a transport.

  Too late.

  I’m too late.

  I give it my all, running full pelt with no regard for my own safety towards the transport. But the hostile who took her slams the door shut, then jumps into the front, the vehicle speeding off before I’m even out of the market.

  I curse, turning back to the market, looking for any other hostiles. But Jaxran’s team have swooped in, taking out the remaining hostiles with military efficiency. Jaxran charges over to me, his jacket flaring out behind him. Everyone between us has the good sense to get out of his way.

  “Tell me you’ve got some decent equipment on that boat of yours,” he says.

  We don’t take the transport back to the Starlight. Jaxran has a couple of speeder bikes. Not quite as comfy as a transport, but fast, and perfect for traversing the desert. We’re back at the docks in minutes.

  “What in all the vecking stars in the Universe is going on, Jaxran?” I snap as we head for the Starlight. “You never mentioned you were having trouble with kidnappers when I commed you about this visit.”

  “Because we aren’t,” Jaxran says. “Or we weren’t. There have been a couple of unregistered landings recently, but that’s it. No one coming to the settlements, not even any bandits hitting transports on the roads between the settlements. The most sheriffing I’ve had to do is breaking up bar fights.”

  “Unregistered landings?” I say, leading us through the Starlight to where my equipment store has been stashed.

  “It’s not uncommon out here,” Jaxran says. “The people who’ve lived here for years say they’ve always had them. My team try to find them, but we haven’t got the man power. I’ve been drafting a request to send to you for some assistance. We think there’s a supply station somewhere nearby, some sort of smugglers hideout, but we haven’t found it yet.”

  I think of the fact that the princess was trafficked all the way out here. Is it a coincidence that Denestra’s also dealing with unregistered landings and a possible smuggler hideout? I doubt it
somehow. There just isn’t enough out here for the two to be unrelated.

  “What intel have you got?” I say, unlocking the equipment store with a palm print. It looks small, but the box has multiple layers in it, and they peel open once the lid is lifted, revealing an armoury of different weapons and equipment choices.

  “Not a lot,” Jax says. “You have to understand, they’ve never interrupted any of our operations - almost like they’re trying to keep away from us. It’s not been a very high priority when we’ve got massive infrastructure projects to get off the ground, biomes to refurbish so the water supply isn’t as unreliable as...”

  My translator gives up as he descends into cursing.

  “Those don’t sound like Sheriff jobs, Jax,” I say.

  “Place like this you’re not just the Sheriff - you’re the mayor, town council, vecking listening ear for any old problem and expected to find a solution, too. I’m working on getting the right people in to the right jobs so it’s not just me, but these things take time.”

  He finishes picking weapons out of the store.

  “The last unregistered flight we had a good track on until the last minute,” he says. “It was heading towards a mountain range about a half hour north of here. Low, coming in for landing. But once it got close to the mountain range, it just disappeared. Like the engines cut out and the trackers all went dead at once. We headed out there, looking for a crash. Turns out there’s something in that mountain range that blocks electronics. Got within half a mile and everything started going haywire. Same must have happened to the boat and either they knew about it and coasted a safe distance then brought the electronics back on, or they crashed somewhere. But we didn’t see any smoke.”

  “Some sort of electromagnetic field?” I ask, pulling on a lightweight body armour.

  “Maybe,” Jax says. “The locals have a legend about it - call it the Haunted Mountain. Most of the community here only half believe it but half is enough to keep people away. I’ve had a hard time convincing people to come and check it out with me. The engineers, the scientists all think it’s nonsense, of course, but they’re not soldiers, not fighters.”